The Fire Still Burns At Night
by RowenaR
Summary: It's Christmas in Atlantis... well, for everyone except Evan Lorne, that is.


**Author:** RowenaR

**Rating:** K+

**Disclaimer:** Stargate belongs to Gekko and… all those other people making money with it. Anyway, I don't. Honestly. So – I don't own, you don't sue. Deal?

**Summary: **It's Christmas in Atlantis... well, for everyone except Evan Lorne, that is.**  
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**A/N: **This is the story I wrote for **Elizabeth_Bartlett** in the Secret Santa 2009 Fic Exchange over on LJ. I hope she (and everyone else) likes it :) Of course **mac** betaed it, even though she was _almost_ on beta-vacation when I finished it...

Anyway, as always: Not a native speaker, so please excuse any weird grammatical constructions, run-ons and typos. Feedback will earn you a cookie, flames will roast my marshmellows.

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**The Fire Still Burns At Night**

"_The nights are colder now  
Maybe I should close the door  
And anyway the snow has covered all your footsteps  
I can follow you no more  
The fire still burns at night  
My memories are warm and clear  
But everybody knows it's hard to be alone  
At this time of year  
It was only a winter's tale  
Just another winter's tale."_

_David Essex, "A Winter's Tale"_

It's not fair. It's just not fair. She wasn't supposed to disappear… or to die. At the moment she's still MIA but everyone presumes her dead. Only they don't _tell_ him that. He wishes they would, though, because he hates how they pussyfoot around him… how they don't talk about _her_ around him. Dammit, it's not as if they had anything going on. All they were… all they _are_ is friends because he refuses to acknowledge the possibility that she might have died as long as he doesn't have _proof_.

It doesn't make it easier to bear the thought she might never come back, though. Three weeks ago, she disappeared on a mission he wasn't part of and they never heard from her again. Sheppard and Woolsey sent out search teams but after a week without results, they had reduced the search to telling the teams that went off-world to keep an eye open for clues but otherwise stay on their missions.

When Sheppard had told him… he'd been ready to become violent with his CO and quite frankly, that had scared him. Sheppard must have realized that his curtness in that conversation hadn't been professional distance but rather the opposite. Ever since then, he'd avoided mentioning Lieutenant Laura Cadman around him and slowly other people – Teyla, Ronon, Keller, McKay, the Marines… – had started to follow this example.

And for some reason… that makes him furious. She was… _is_ one of them and they just don't _talk_ about her? Around him, they behave as if she never existed. Unfortunately, that doesn't help a bit because he keeps seeing her in every damn nook and cranny. He sees her in the armory when Benitez hands out the C4, he sees her in the common room when they show "Backdraft" on movie night… and worst of all he sees her in every Christmas tree they put up for the season around the time she disappeared, in every garland and in every candle…

God, why did she have to disappear? And why did she have to disappear three fucking weeks before fucking Christmas? He'd known from last year that she really likes Christmas and that she was looking forward her second Christmas on Atlantis, even if it meant not being with her family yet again. When he'd asked her four weeks ago if she didn't miss them she'd said that yeah, of course she does but – and she had smiled so beautifully shy then – that she considered certain people on Atlantis part of her family as well.

It had… surprised him enough to make him abstain from jokingly asking if _he_ was part of that exclusive group as well and now he wishes he would have. He wishes… he wishes he would have done so many other things as well. For example having the private Star Wars DVD marathon with her she'd proposed last month and he'd declined, claiming he didn't have enough time for it. Or let her torture the new recruits with explosives safety instruction lessons more often. Or maybe tell her that she ceased to be just a friend a while ago but that would have required him realizing this _before_ she was gone.

He's such an idiot, really. Missed opportunities… it's probably one of the hottest topics in Atlantis. Well, even though no one talks about them, by some unspoken collective agreement of not wanting to acknowledge how much death was part of their daily work. And he walked right into that trap as well, telling himself that hey, there would always be another chance for it.

But now she's gone and because he refuses to acknowledge she might be gone forever all he can do is keep the proverbial fire in the hearth burning, keep up hope she'll come back as stupid as it may be, be on the look out for… "Unscheduled off-world activation." Dammit, he nearly fell off his chair at Chuck barking it into the control room.

He tries to get back his bearing. "Who is it?"

Chuck still looks a little confused. "It's… Captain Pershey's IDC. They're hailing us." Huh. Pershey's team wasn't supposed to be back until tomorrow and their next check-in should have been in two hours. Right. Back into soldier mode.

"Patch them through." Chuck hits a few buttons and then Pershey's voice sounds through the room, a bit frantic.

"Coming in hot! Need med team by the Gate, got Cadman." Holy _fuck_. He almost tumbles backwards at the last sentence and only his fast reaction saves him from public humiliation because he manages to grab the edge of the table _and_ to keep his professional façade intact.

Behind it, his head and his heart are in turmoil, not quite ready to believe what Pershey just told them but at least a small part of him is able to function despite the rest being virtually useless. "Lower the shield. Milliner, call the infirmary. Kiinekauta, call Colonel Sheppard."

The team gets into gear and seconds later Pershey and her team stumble into the gate room, accompanied by a bunch of laser beams. Also, Sergeants Durst and Christianson are carrying someone in their midst who… before he knows it, he's down at the ramp, kneeling beside her. There's blood all over her – and God, how he hopes it's not all _her_ blood – and she's ghostly pale but she's _alive_ and that's all that counts.

Beside him, Pershey is rattling down her sit rep but it's turned into kind of a faint buzz in his ears. By now his whole attention is on Laura, searching for her hand, almost frantically trying to make her realize he's there. She seems to be semi-conscious, her breathing unsteady and ragged with her eyes half-open.

Finally, he finds one of her hands and squeezes it. For a moment, she doesn't react but then she turns her head to him and makes an effort to open her eyes a bit more… which seems to be difficult with the dried blood from a laceration on her forehead. But he doesn't care about that because in that moment her mouth turns into a shaky smile and it's probably the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Then she whispers almost inaudibly over the commotion in the gate room, "Merry Christmas Brushes."

He can't decide between laughing or crying and so it's something in between when he squeezes her hand again and chokes out, "To you too, Dynamite."

Then suddenly Keller's team descends on her and she's taken away from him. He doesn't understand their med babble but he's got the feeling it's not good. As she's wheeled out of the gate room he can't help but stare after her and then at his bloodied hands… "She's gonna be okay, Major."

A little bewilderedly he looks up again, into the face of one of the nurses… Demikova, yeah, that's her name. He's about to say something meaningless, deny any emotional attachment to Laura but she smiles as if she's never gonna believe _it_ anyway. He takes a deep breath and responds with a shaky smile himself. "Thanks. I just…"

"I know, Major. I'll let you know when you can see her." He nods again, unable to speak and she leaves for the infirmary. Yeah, Laura will be okay. She's back and she's in capable hands and there's no reason now that she shouldn't survive. Also… this is Christmas and everyone deserves a Christmas miracle now and then again. It's really time Laura and he get theirs.


End file.
